


The House of Whisperers: Hinowa

by imahira



Category: Ushio to Tora | Ushio and Tora
Genre: Canon - Manga, Essays, Gen, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2020-05-07 09:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imahira/pseuds/imahira
Summary: Compilation of a couple of posts about the manga version of Hinowa's fight in the House of Whisperers. (Translations/typesetting by me)





	The House of Whisperers: Hinowa

([1](https://40.media.tumblr.com/393f38e6c4c83e629ce3d4c3099c74aa/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o1_1280.png) [2](https://40.media.tumblr.com/7e33e4d950dc6ac8828c67592f71af93/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o2_1280.png) [3](https://40.media.tumblr.com/fba8fc0b8073f9f1fbc7be1d1a9fd713/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o3_1280.png) [4](https://41.media.tumblr.com/bb677ed7b3b706d68240f2e62fba63e3/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o4_1280.png) [5](https://40.media.tumblr.com/8463328a4820dae42a8e2635eb03eb9c/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o5_1280.png) [6](https://41.media.tumblr.com/39f8ac716bef51cbb73090e8177ab935/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o6_1280.png) [7](https://40.media.tumblr.com/42f4c217cc05e2329d07c20431b3fb3e/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o7_1280.png) [8](https://36.media.tumblr.com/463cbde7a277dac3e36efe5fc42ce94c/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o8_1280.png) [9](https://36.media.tumblr.com/973958998409e8b543951751315ff8f5/tumblr_nyym1qieNP1qevv11o9_1280.png))

I’m not a big fan of the mechanics of this fight, BUT it is an important one for Hinowa’s character, and I was hoping we’d get official translations, since the scanlations leave a little bit to be desired. Unfortunately both Hinowa and Nagare’s fights had to be cut from the anime for time, so I did my own quick retranslation of the important parts, because I’m the angry feminist who gets mad when people call Hinowa and Asako bitches without trying to understand where they’re coming from. (longer meta [here](http://funnuraba.tumblr.com/post/134687253887))

I’m gonna do Nagare’s fight too, since that’s important for different reasons, but that’s gonna take another week at least.

***notes:   
– the word translated as “Chosen One” in the scanlations (伝承者) basically means "the one who inherits", so I went with Successor instead.  
– “All the trouble we’ve gone through”: in the Japanese, no pronoun is used in this sentence, so while I gave it my best guess, she could also be referring to the trouble  _she’s_  gone through, or to the trouble Ushio’s gone through.

(–also note from the future: SORRY, her line on the first page should actually be “Obviously we’re taking the shortest possible route!”)

* * *

 

And here’s some longer wordvomit about Hinowa’s character in [this fight](http://funnuraba.tumblr.com/post/134687250387/):

The part where she gets her shirt ripped open is super eye-rolly, of course, but the important thing is that this is the part that makes it really clear that she acts defensive and abrasive because she’s been devalued her entire life for being a girl. And Ushio in particular keeps pushing those buttons, both when he refuses to fight her when they first meet (and you can see her mood change in a second when he brings that up), and here when he implies that she shouldn’t even be here in the first place, even though she just gone done proving that she’s far more experienced and knowledgeable than him.

And something else that’s implied here is that Hinowa is at least the second generation of her family to be involved with the Kouhamei sect. It’s not clear when she decided to become a candidate for the Spear despite her father’s lack of faith in her, but she’s at least been aware of the Beast Spear from a very young age.

And after she’s finally been recognized, her rival candidates are:

\- Moritsuna, who’s talented and hard-working; it’s not clear when exactly he and Jun became involved with the sect, but since they’re orphans, they have no family connection.  
\- Nagare, who doesn’t even care about the Spear, but does have real talent; based on his flashbacks my guess is that he was 14 at least by the time he became a houriki-sou.  
\- Kirio, a literal child who appeared out of nowhere 2 years ago, and also, very vocally, doesn’t even want the Spear.

So she’s worked harder and longer than at least two of them, and, unlike any of them, has known about the Beast Spear for most of her life.

And  _then_  this random kid pulls the Beast Spear out of his basement, knowing absolutely nothing about it, and proceeds to wander around Japan blowing up airplanes and not even bothering to get rid of the monster it was sealing for all those years.

So, once we know all this, it makes a  _lot_  more sense why she acts the way she does around Ushio. Most of her self-worth has been wrapped up in wielding the Beast Spear for a long time, and she had . (The way she remembers her father–and the fact that she didn’t think of him back when she actually got her hands on the Beast Spear–gives me personally the impression that these are memories from a very early age, and that he may have died before she got the chance to prove him wrong, but that’s just speculation.)

She’s very insistent that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or woman in battle, so she’s not completely ruled by her father’s way of thinking, but she clearly hasn’t shed all her insecurities. When she’s panicking in the middle of the fight, she calls specifically on Ushio to be a  _man_  and think of his mission. In the final battle, we see her fighting alongside the rest of the Kouhamei Sect, with a slightly different perspective, and that’s a change that’s set up by her interactions with Ushio, and the fight in the House of Whisperers in particular.


End file.
